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Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Church to Darwin: "Sorry We Misunderstood."

Christians, in their misunderstanding of Charles Darwin, are committing the same mistake they made in the 17th Century in doubting Galileo when he said the earth revolves around the sun.

That’s the official conclusion of the Church of England and is being stated formally in an apology to Darwin (1802-1889). The apology is addressed directly to Darwin himself – 126 years after his death. It is to be posted on the church’s website and released formally, stating:

Charles Darwin: 200 years from your birth, the church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still. We try to practice the old virtues of 'faith seeking understanding' and hope that makes some amends.

Darwin, in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, established evolution by common descent as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature.

Opposition to Darwin's evolutionary theories is still "a litmus test of faithfulness" for some Christian movements. The Church of England, in support of its apology, says such attitudes are rooted in perceived threats to Christianity.

Galileo (1564-1642) was the most noted astronomer and scientist of his era, and his belief that the earth orbited the sun was considered heresy by the Catholic Church. The church – as has been the case with Darwin’s teachings - prohibited advocacy of Galileo's teachings on grounds it was contrary to the literal meaning of Scripture. Galileo, at the hands of the Inquisition, was eventually forced to recant, and spent the last years of his life under house arrest.

1 comment:

Darwin did,not invent evolution by any strech of the imagination.Many scientist of his era preffered the concept of evolution to creation.Yet ,there was no logical explanation for how evolution proceded.His contribution is that he came up with mechanisum of natural selection.The week link in his theory is that we haven,t found fossil evidence to support the transitonal forms,also to explain the introduction of new species.Part of the dilema is based on the existing 2 main theory having monopoly on explaining the evolution.1.Uniformitarianism:Stating that the past geologic event can be explained by forces obsrevable today.2.Catasttrophism :Believes that the Universe and the Earth,experienced major changes only as a result of catastrophic events. Back in the Darwin time the first theory was very popular and he was supporting it.As lately the second one is gaining momentum and giving us credible explanations for facts that the first one can,t explain.As many science theory is hard for a single one to be 100% right.The science evolve as everything in this world.We have to give the church a credit that evolve too.One more thing about "Origin of the species" is that included a statement about the favored races.It has had great effects on political filosophies.It is believed to be foundation for the filosophies of Marx,Engels,Hitler,Lenin,Mao/i guess .Putin too!! because was part of the soviet era university study/ So through the ages this great work ifluenced many bright/and dark/minds.Would be interesting to observe the effect of the Church apologie.Do you think that people will start unmounting those silly add-ons from their cars.I mean decals or stickers in a shape of fish swallowing the name Darwin.Well mr. Charles Darwin hats off to you!!You have the last laugh,because you are to Big to be swallowed from a fish.

About Gregory LeFever

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I Ching commentaries on my blog are from the classic The I Ching or Book of Changes, translated by Richard Wilhelm with a Forward by Carl Jung, Princeton University Press, 1950. By the way, when selecting entries for my blog, I don't "throw" anything to discover the hexagram - I simply open the book at random and see what's there.

Selections from the Tao Te Ching are from Stephen Mitchell's translation.